Plane hits mountain in Venezuela; 46 dead

Saturday

MERIDA, Venezuela (AP) - A Venezuelan passenger plane slammed into a steep mountainside in the Andes, killing all 46 people on board, officials said.

The twin-engine plane was shattered to bits upon impact, leaving only its tail largely intact and a swath of charred ground amid scrub brush at an altitude of 13,500 feet.

Search teams reached the remote spot by helicopter and rappelled down with ropes to reach the crash site, Gen. Ramon Vinas, chief of the civil aviation authority, said yesterday. "By the way it crashed we can determine there are no survivors," he said.

President Hugo Chavez declared that "Venezuela is in mourning" and called for a full investigation.

The French-made ATR 42-300 carrying 43 passengers and three crew members crashed Thursday shortly after takeoff from the Andean city of Merida, a tourist destination wedged between soaring mountain peaks.

The victims, mostly Venezuelans, also included three Colombians, identified as Hugo Juan Farfan, Juan Pablo Ruiz and Luis Vargas, and a U.S. citizen, Vivian Guarch, officials said.

Guarch, 53, was an employee of a Miami branch of Stanford Bank who was on a business trip to Merida, the company said.

The Santa Barbara Airlines flight crashed in an area known as Los Conejos plateau within the Sierra La Culata National Park.

"The impact was direct. The aircraft is practically pulverized," firefighter Sgt. Jhonny Paz told the Venezuelan television channel Globovision.

The plane went down just 6 miles from the airport, en route to Caracas.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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